


we write

by sabinelagrande



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Altered Mental States, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode: s02e02 Heavy is the Head, F/M, Missing Scene, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-01
Updated: 2014-10-01
Packaged: 2018-02-19 11:57:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2387447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sabinelagrande/pseuds/sabinelagrande
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It is a ritual, and Melinda is part of it now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we write

She can see when it's starting to end, when Phil is finishing the writing, whatever it is, wherever it comes from. He always works outward, branches off, moves around, and when it begins to come back to the beginning, that's when it's time.

He knew there was ritual in it from the very first time, though he didn't know how much. But by now he- only it's not he, it's _they_ , it has been since the second time, the one where she found him passed out in front of a finished wall. It has to be a wall. It has to be a knife, the same knife it's always been. He has to have his feet uncovered. There are a dozen things, none of which seem to make sense. Doesn't matter. They know what goes into it now, how it needs to proceed, and they're ready.

Melinda makes sure of that.

Phil is finished writing now; Melinda makes sure everything has been fully documented before she takes the elastic off her wrist, putting her hair up in a ponytail. It's easier that way, easier to conceal it. It has to be concealed, for so many reasons, reasons that go beyond even a wall full of whatever it is that he writes. There are things that don't get said, things that they can't allow to happen, mistakes that can't be made. This is a dangerous, fragile time, and they can't be seen to be anything but stone.

She unbuttons her shirt, laying it on the desk, spread so that it won't crease. She unhooks her bra, laying it next to her shirt. Her pants are next, her underwear tucked into them. She doesn't know if this is part of the ritual or if it's just her; it happens anyway.

It was different when it started, _really_ started, the third time it happened to him, the first time it happened to them. That time, she hadn't known what was coming; it wasn't all clear to her, even if it was clear to him. There were parts they still didn't know, and she still isn't sure whether she added herself by stepping in, if there is only one script, if her presence changed the universe, the one that flows out when this happens, becomes real.

She wasn't prepared at all, not prepared for him to turn around, the wild, lost look in his eyes. What she was actually prepared for was to catch him, since he'd passed out the first two times, but that wasn't what happened, not in the least.

"You know what I need," he said plainly.

All at once, she knew that she did, knew what he meant. "And I shouldn't give it to you," she said firmly, though somehow she already knew it was going to happen, that there was no way to stop it. "Not right now. You're not yourself."

"I can see the entire universe," he said, and in that moment he sounded so much like himself that she all but forgot what was happening. "I'm fine." His face changed, and what she saw hurt her, somewhere in her chest. "Please."

Probably she should have come up with a better plan, because it passed into ritual then; everything did, compounding, becoming part of the thing that was encircling them, ensnaring them. But it had to be done, a decision had to be made in an instant, and she did it, for better or worse.

When he came back to himself, the first thing he said was, "Really, Melinda? My chair?" and all she could do was shrug. At least it was comfortable.

She's fully naked by the time he manages to turn around, stops staring at the wall. She takes him by the arm, leading him to the chair, sitting him down. He needs water first, a few long, slow sips, the same glass every time, one that stays hidden in his office so it doesn't- what, she doesn't know, so it doesn't become contaminated, so it doesn't contaminate something else. 

When he's finished, she takes the glass out of his hand, setting it back on the desk. He's staring at her, now, not the way he looked at the wall but with the same intensity, the same single-minded focus. It scares her a little.

Nothing that scares her stops her. She usually takes it as a personal challenge.

She climbs into his lap, straddling his thighs, and he pulls her towards him, kissing her hard. All of this is ritual, but this part, this is different, extemporaneous. She sometimes feels like they're in between worlds, like they have to fall, move back down to whatever this life is, leave the place the words come from. It's where things change; his paced, steady movements start to break up, entropy setting in. Maybe the chair helps, the imperfection, the improbability of it, removed from the precision of the sheet, the wall, the glass, the knife.

It turns frantic quickly. He reaches between them, pushing down his pants and boxers so he can free his cock. He's hard, he always is, and she needs him so badly, needs him inside her. They're somewhere else, and the high hasn't subsided yet; they're not back from wherever it was they went. They're moving in fast-motion, and it gets into her too, whatever worlds that he has in him seeping into her skin, moving through her body. His cock is hard and insistent and there's nothing better than taking it inside of her, _nothing_ , not a goddamn thing that has ever been or will ever be.

"I can see," he says, like he always does.

"I know," she replies. "I see it too."

That's all they say, because that's all there is to be said. He kisses her again, grabbing onto her ponytail, and she doesn't stop him. There's very little pain involved, but it grounds her, spurs on the sinking, pulling feeling, the draining. She has to keep kissing him so that she can keep the noise to a minimum. She's not loud, never has been, learned to control it even better when she started needing to, but she wants to scream, she wants to moan, she wants to just make _sound_ , just explode. She can only stop it because they're sealed together, sharing the same air, one thing and one thing only, no division between them at all.

She's moving faster, and he's thrusting up to meet her, over and over. His hands are on her ass, and his fingertips are digging into her so hard she can feel his nails, that she thinks she must have little half-moon marks on her skin, the evidence of him on her. She doesn't dislike that idea as much as she should, not when it comes from this, when it comes from whatever this is, this sprawling outpouring of the universe, this unrestrainable, ever-moving thing that has overcome them.

They're getting closer and closer and closer, and she can feel it building, like a crescendo, like a tidal wave, and the whole world is shaking in anticipation. He's clutching at her, pulling her as near him as he can, close enough that she's barely moving any real distance, just grinding on him over and over again, his cock as far inside of her as it can possibly get. She needs that, has to have it, has to interlock with him, has to be joined with him if either of them are going to get out of this.

She can't keep it in anymore. There's no stopping it; she's going to burst, to fly into pieces, to become stardust, scattered light, a cloud, spread out into the universe, so fine and pure that it's like nothing at all, just background noise. She presses her face into his shoulder and _screams_ , pushing down on him hard, her hips working as it starts to hit, as she loses control, loses even the thin grip on reality and time and space that she had. Her entire body spasms, like she's coming with every cell, every molecule that she has. He pulls her down, slamming up into her, and she can feel him coming like it's happening to her, like there's no division between them, no way to tell one from the other.

They're infinitely suspended there, in a place that exists nowhere else, a place where there is nothing, nothing but the heartbeat of the universe, and she hears it pulsing over and over again, sees it spread out before her, laid out like a vivisection, and she _knows_.

When she blinks awake, she has a crick in her neck and her thighs feel sticky, in a way that isn't pleasant.

She thought, when this started, it was going to stop him from passing out. Now they both pass out.

"Hey," he says, looking at her hazily.

"Hi," she replies, kissing him. They're here, now, in the place where they started, the plane that they come from. She's exhausted and _starving_ , but she really doesn't want to move. She's sore in parts of her body she didn't know she could be sore in before they started this, which is really amazing considering everything she's been through. It always feels like no time, like it happens in an instant, but as usual, it's been two hours and forty-six minutes since Phil stopped writing. She's fairly certain they only pass out for somewhere between ten and twenty minutes, which explains why she hurts so damn much.

She doesn't stop kissing him, and he doesn't seem like he wants to either. A lot of it is probably that they're stalling, because it's going to really suck to get up. Mostly, though, it seems like a thing they need, a way to cool down, a means to make everything settle enough for them to be able to separate, to subdivide what they became.

She thinks they might really be one thing now, inextricable, like all of this has linked them, like they've made some pact without knowing. 

That _terrifies_ her.

The ritual is over, but she knows what happens next. The pictures will be carefully sealed, placed with the others, hidden away. She will get dressed and put the room back together. There's a role for both of them; she can touch the glass but not the knife, the sheet but not the wall. She doesn't look when it's time for the wall to come down; Phil always effaces it first, tears it open with huge lashes from the knife. She can't tell why that's important, why he does it. It isn't like the rest of it, isn't methodical and unchanging. It seems like an act of violence, like a cleansing, like a thing Phil does so that he can prove to himself that it's done, that he has control, that the thing that's taken him- them- doesn't define him. They both know that it does, but she won't stop him from doing this. She can let him have that much.

When he's destroyed the inscription, he'll take the whole thing down; she can touch it once it's on the floor, once they start breaking it into pieces and stuffing it into bags. It will be incinerated as soon as possible, which is the second-hardest part, after explaining why they keep buying so much drywall.

The "leaking shower" story is starting to sound suspect. They only have so many bathrooms, and the building is almost all concrete.

Right now, though, she's not moving, and Phil's not trying to make her. That's in the future. This is the present. She's trying to make herself keep that distinction functional, to not forget, to make it seem like she hasn't transcended, like she and Phil don't know how much there is to know. It's getting harder, and she doesn't enjoy that, doesn't know how to fight it.

He traces his fingertips up her spine, and she shivers, pressing against him. The future can wait.


End file.
